Automotive Night Vision

It looks like several auto makers have tried it, but most use a separate screen (distracting). Only the Cadillac projected the animal/pedestrian/(cyclist) onto the windshield as an HUD, but that's been discontinued.

My guess is that the optics are very complicated and expensive to implement. On aircraft HUDs, the projecting surface is flat but a car windshield is curved; I think that may make the whole HUD concept impractical for auto use. (It could be done, perhaps, but at a very high cost.) If the imaging system costs more than the car, no one will buy the car.

For aircraft, the HUD provides vision in the pilot's primary field of view, a narrow area directly in front of him. For cars, hazards are often outside that area, on the periphery of vision. Later aircraft technology uses HMDs (helmet mounted displays) to give the pilot imaging over a wider field of view. I don't think most drivers would even consider that at this stage, and the helmet for a HMD needs to be tailored to each individual pilot; no easy adjustment between users.

Last edited by Doohickie; 07-01-11 at 08:25 AM.

I stop for people / whose right of way I honor / but not for no one.

Originally Posted by bragi"However, it's never a good idea to overgeneralize."

For aircraft, the HUD provides vision in the pilot's primary field of view, a narrow area directly in front of him.

More importantly, the pilot is in a five-point restraint and a seat that can be adjusted so his head is pretty much in exactly the same spot all the time. Superimposing a CG image onto the direct view effectively requires that the viewing angle be known and either constant or tracked continuously. A shorter driver would need the image adjusted, as would the bozos that lounge across the entire front of the car. That's also part of the reason for going to the helmet mounted systems in aircraft; by tracking the helmet's position, the view can be adjusted to track and continue superimposing the CG portions of the image (IR view, aiming reticle for turret-mounted guns, etc.) properly on the actual view even when the pilot looks out a side window.